Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[CHEMS]

Versatility makes sense in low PER high DEX builds. I see no reason to have high PER on your build unless going for sharpshooter... Getting versatility with 9 PER seems like a waste of feat to me, if you're leveling guns every level

 

[lukaszek]

at what lvl should i start taking versatility? im at lvl 14 atm and it doesnt make a difference.

i usually go the other way around - start with stabbing, grow into pistols.
Or as you can see on posted build, use both. That I like even more.

+ at what CHEMS is saying. We just dont know what you are going for. Optimal is 3 per max dex for versatility. I could see someone liking ambush but beyond that seems too much.

Also ballistic pistols are annoying since they require wasted 70 investment into guns

 

[CHEMS]

Also ballistic pistols are annoying since they require wasted 70 investment into guns

He could go for expertise instead of versatility and go nuts with 5mm hawkers. Ballistic pistols require high initiative though, you can go crazy with the Magnum, if you have high AGI and initiative, it gets you a nice shot for free! Sharpshooter is good for crit versatility builds only. He could craft pistols with the smart addon thingy and spam special shots paired with smart googles, rapid fire with explosive .44 is really good

Need to see his build to know what's going on though

 

[lukaszek]

wanted to check something but my saves are empty(duh, new machine). Can I somehow pull them from steam cloud or something? Never interacted with it

 

[Piotrovitz]

Fuck, I left my current first run with Expedition for few weeks and getting back I'm feeling worn out as fuck and just too tired to continue. It's a major fucking bummer, because original game was literally one of the few cRPGs in the last decade that have captivated me and made me sink into it dozens of hours.

New areas are amazing, tons of stuff to explore etc etc, but at lvl 24 and only doing a few quests (currently I'm at the one where the doc wants to check the health center) I feel I can steamroll everything (playing on hard, high crit SMG build, no psi). Decided that before the next quest I will check if I can wipe out the pirate base, and that was it - there's no fun anymore. I'm drowning in high end gear, dozens of focus stims and other chems, W2C bullets, and with high DEX and PER I'm just running and wiping the floor with everyone in the first round. Going on just doesn't feel fun anymore, even though I suspect there will be a couple of tough fights requiring some reloads.

Dunno where the problem lies - overabundance of gear/crafting materials? I have so many health hypos/focus stims/jumping beans/w2c bullets/MKIV granades, that I don't even bother with picking up the new consumables/ingredients from Expedition.

Or just hard is not hard enough, and dominating is not something for me - tried it once and it felt like a chore. Would be cool to have some extra diff, something in-between.

 

[Grunker]

Fuck, I left my current first run with Expedition for few weeks and getting back I'm feeling worn out as fuck and just too tired to continue. It's a major fucking bummer, because original game was literally one of the few cRPGs in the last decade that have captivated me and made me sink into it dozens of hours.

New areas are amazing, tons of stuff to explore etc etc, but at lvl 24 and only doing a few quests (currently I'm at the one where the doc wants to check the health center) I feel I can steamroll everything (playing on hard, high crit SMG build, no psi). Decided that before the next quest I will check if I can wipe out the pirate base, and that was it - there's no fun anymore. I'm drowning in high end gear, dozens of focus stims and other chems, W2C bullets, and with high DEX and PER I'm just running and wiping the floor with everyone in the first round. Going on just doesn't feel fun anymore, even though I suspect there will be a couple of tough fights requiring some reloads.

Dunno where the problem lies - overabundance of gear/crafting materials? I have so many health hypos/focus stims/jumping beans/w2c bullets/MKIV granades, that I don't even bother with picking up the new consumables/ingredients from Expedition.

Or just hard is not hard enough, and dominating is not something for me - tried it once and it felt like a chore. Would be cool to have some extra diff, something in-between.

Even Dom is pretty easy at that point

However the expansion is amazing. It does what Underrail does best even better: exploration and world building

 

[Piotrovitz]

Even Dom is pretty easy at that point
However the expansion is amazing. It does what Underrail doesbest even better: exploration and world building

Yeah, reading here how many dudes are playing on dom, I suspect that after tough beginnings it has a point when difficulty curve goes down.

Exploration in Expedition is first class, but being OPd takes the half the fun away - I miss the adrenaline from lvls 6-14 and battles like in Junkyard depot.

Guess the way to combat this is to intentionally go with some less powerful builds, e.g. no psi pure pistol build, but after sinking so many hours into it I don't think I have stamina to start it all over again. Maybe in a year or two.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Yeah, the implementation of the Expedition content could have been better. It seems like a good thing that you can start it whenever you want, but in the end that means if you do too much stuff in the base game first then you get overlevelled and it's too easy. And if you start it early then you get overlevelled for the base game instead. Either way you're getting overlevelled and making some part of the game not fun. Guess that's why Infusion is standalone.

 

[razvedchiki]

you can get overlevelled just fine in the base game, after depot a when the game opens up you can get from lvl 10 to 15-16 just by exploring.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Yeah, the implementation of the Expedition content could have been better. It seems like a good thing that you can start it whenever you want, but in the end that means if you do too much stuff in the base game first then you get overlevelled and it's too easy. And if you start it early then you get overlevelled for the base game instead. Either way you're getting overlevelled and making some part of the game not fun. Guess that's why Infusion is standalone.

Yeah, I think that's the case and the main problem with any DLCs with extra content/loot/XP - after finishing it, everything is piss easy, because the core game has not been adjusted adequately, like, e.g. in New Vegas. It's tricky to implement new content properly, without fucking up the balance of the whole game.

 

[CHEMS]

I only get overleveled on dominating if i play on classic, there's too many high level enemies, game throws you xp like confetti

On DOM i usually hit level cap just before fighting tchort if i'm playing on odity and i always finish expedition before going to DC

 

[Grunker]

I ender up Level 27 on Oddity After doing a ton of the quests. Over leveling is mostly a thing on Classic I guess?

The real issue is that your build typically starts getting all its synergies unlocked at around 20, which snowballs in a way that makes your character outscale the content.

Locusts are still a bitch tho

 

[CHEMS]

Most builds come up online at lvl 12~16... There's very few builds that need to be around 20 to get strong. Versatility builds are this case, they're usually very feat intensive and the offensive lagging behind demands higher levels to really shine

Locusts are still a bitch tho

Locusts are entirelly optional unless you're ditching stealth, i only fight them for their oddities

 

[Spark Mandriller]

If you're over level 25 you're already overlevelled. The base game was designed around the original level cap of 25, and Expedition was meant to fit in at the midway point so it doesn't expect level 25 either. There's absolutely 0 content in the game which is designed for level 26 or above.
I guess maybe the solution is to just not level too high even if you do have the experience, but who wants to do that? Feels weird ignoring it. Or maybe it'd be a good idea, I don't know.

 

[Sykar]

The solution would be a redesign of the effective levels of enemies.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Some sort of scaling can help. PoE1 has the same situation - White March expansions thrown into the base game + raising the lvl cap by few lvls, due to extra xp you get.

No matter how much the game is hated here, Soyer did a good job with optional difficulty scaling for later chapters - that way even if you came back from dlc areas (or decided to do them at the end), there was still a challenge and a sense of reward after tough fights.

In UR, unfortunately it seems that Expedition, however awesome it is, messes up the game balance, not only for psychofans from this thread who tried dozens of builds and can meta the shit out of the game, but also for average crowd like me.

Not levelling deliberately could work if you have the willpower 20 irl. Otherwise the only solution I see is going with suboptimal builds, so the danger is always there.

 

[lukaszek]

not only for psychofans from this thread

psychofans dont care. We are mostly at dominating and our gameplan is about going from boss fight to boss fight. Levels are not really an issue when everything is unfair.

also for average crowd like me

are you on classic? Its not easy to over level on oddity without knowing where easy pickings are.

If you're over level 25 you're already overlevelled. The base game was designed around the original level cap of 25, and Expedition was meant to fit in at the midway point so it doesn't expect level 25 either. There's absolutely 0 content in the game which is designed for level 26 or above.

again, on oddity you wont hit 25 unless you are very thorough

 

[thesecret1]

Oddity is superior to classic in every possible way. If you haven't tried it yet, do yourself a favor and play on oddity.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

again, on oddity you wont hit 25 unless you are very thorough

Fairly certain you will. There's a massive amount of easy experience in the Black Sea. Though I have played the game a lot so maybe I'm forgetting what it's like for a normal player who doesn't know where everything is. Need to hit myself in the head really hard so I can forget.

 

[lukaszek]

again, on oddity you wont hit 25 unless you are very thorough

Fairly certain you will. There's a massive amount of easy experience in the Black Sea. Though I have played the game a lot so maybe I'm forgetting what it's like for a normal player who doesn't know where everything is. Need to hit myself in the head really hard so I can forget.

exactly this. If you just follow quests, it wont be that much. If you explore everything, well it doesnt matter at that point, thats what I meant by being thorough.
Then there is a matter whether you are breaking/stealing oddities which new players likely won't do. Nor do things like obtaining lantern and get dust oddities.

Can't remember, I think on dominating oddity(which offer a bit more) I was able to hit 29-29.5 before going to DC while obtaining absolutely everything.

Anyway your build is(should) be online by level 14, which is also more or less a lvl you can obtain on dominating for 'free' with meta knowledge. Otherwise a bunch of builds will have really painful beginnings.

 

[Piotrovitz]

are you on classic? Its not easy to over level on oddity without knowing where easy pickings are.

Oddity, same as on my first pre-Expedition run (think I've hit the cap back then right before or at the beginning of DC)

I wouldn't say I'm super thorough with exploration, or that I'm rushing for some particular oddities by looking up for meta advises on the net - everything came natural, and here I am, maybe 1/3 into Expedition and approaching lvl 25. I haven't even touched Institute, Fort Apogee, and majority of upper tunnels or lower caves.

I think it's what Spark is saying - expansion throws too much easy exp at you, whether from quests or oddities lying left and right. This should be countered by implementing some kind of smart mob lvl/stats scaling, otherwise you're on iddqd god-mode, which sucks away most of the fun from further exploration.

Remember I'm talking bout Hard - Dom might be a different experience, but I don't think I will ever try it, due to frustrating beginnings (tried once, almost smashed my laptop during 'save Newton' quest).

 

[CHEMS]

I dumped my last classic run because i got bored. On the very beggining of expedition, visiting the hospital, i hit level 30. This without doing any grinding at all. Stoped playing because it got too easy, there's too much combat xp on DOM

 

[Sykar]

Guess experience should be cut in half as well on Dom just like health hypos.

 

[CHEMS]

Bout 30% less experience would balance it just fine. Not to mention quest XP on classic. Institute's quests on classic gives huge amounts of XP, even on later levels you get at least 2 level ups doing quests for the Institute, and those are really easy to complete. 4k xp points for drinking booze lol

 

[Piotrovitz]

XP aside, the skill investment, especially biology/chemistry/electronics, needed for crafting shit should be much more higher, so you're not swimming in focus stims, morphine/adrenaline shots, health hypos and other stuff. Plus make those resources more scarce and more expensive, so they should be rationed carefully and saved for tougher fights. Make W2C ammo more scarce (actually it kinda is, until you make some investment in mercantile and discover the dude in Foundry - then you're just visiting him once in a while and soon drown in hundreds of w2c's).